


Through The Kaleidoscope

by Winter in Autumn (TearoomSaloon)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Budding Love, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Non-Linear Narrative, Rating subject to change, Vignette, almost a drabble collection but not quite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 15:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TearoomSaloon/pseuds/Winter%20in%20Autumn
Summary: There was more than one way to look at them, who they were, what they were becoming to each other. There was more than one way to fall in love.





	Through The Kaleidoscope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all I want for them is a slow romance, a soft love  
> [listening suggestion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHQ3VLQvop0)

It’s the late. It’s night. For them, the darkness seems to bring about the most important conversations. The party in the other room is counting down the seconds to the first stroke of the new year, leaving them alone on the sofa in Ally’s den. She has her legs thrown over his lap, nursing a steadily warming beer. They’re close enough to walk back to her house, but he’s insisting he’ll be driving later, the ice in his drink having melted a half hour ago.

“Do you ever think about how unlikely this all is?”

He turns his attention to her, fingers drawing idle shapes on her thighs. “You getting me to come to another party?”

“No, I mean us.”

“I’ll admit I’ve spent time mulling it over more than once.”

Nancy shakes out her hair and leans in closer, the smell of his shampoo pulling her lazily into a daydream she’s had a few times now.

It’s late November in her made-up world. The outside air has enough of a bite to make her shiver, but not enough to freeze down her bones. Leaves litter the ground and the smell of a fireplace sneaks its way through the house. They lie on her bed, textbooks discarded on the floor, feet dangling off opposite sides, her fingers laced in his hair. The music drifting from her stereo is his, something soft and gentle. Cozy, if it can be described like that.

There’s something special about Jonathan Byers, and she feels it most in the fall. Last fall, this fall—autumn makes her wistful, reaching for something she can’t quite name. In this fragment of fake memory she tells him something she can’t hear, something that makes a smile bloom on his cheeks.

Outside of her imagination, Nancy sighs with a small grin, her eyes drawn to the light from the kitchen.

“What are you thinking about?” There’s a hint of teasing in Jonathan’s voice. He’s caught her unfocused like this more than once—more frequently now than before.

“You.”

“With that dreamy of a look? Are you sure it wasn’t that sweater you’ve been eyeing for a week?”

She doesn’t follow with his joke. “No, it was you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”

“You see me almost daily.”

“So?” She kisses his cheek, presses her nose to the side of his neck. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think about you.”

“Fine, what about me were you thinking of?”

“Just...you. In my daydream I always tell you something and you get a big stupid grin before the idea fades.”

He turns his head to give her a peck on her forehead. “What do you tell me?”

What does she tell him?

She thinks it’s related to the knot in her chest made of adrenaline and butterflies. The way she feels like air when he wraps his arms around her waist, the way his breath tickles her neck when they fall asleep beside each other.

Nancy takes a sip of her beer.  _For courage_ , she reassures herself. “That I love you.”

His voice is quiet, low. “And do you?”

“I don’t know why I’d daydream I did if I didn’t,” she says, realization sinking in. “It’s okay if you don’t.”

“But is it okay if I do?”

She has to hide her smile, hide the wicked blush and heat blooming on her cheeks. “Absolutely.”

Nancy repositions herself to sit in his lap, to rest against his chest as he holds her closer. It wasn’t a huge declaration, it wasn’t dramatic, confessing. It was soft. Just right, she decides, giving him a quick kiss.

“Do you want to get out of here?” she whispers, brushing his hair from his eyes.

“I’m not driving home tonight, am I?”

“You can if you want to, but only if you take me with you.”

They leave without a word, hand in hand, hurrying in the growing chill of winter. Even in the cold, her chest feels warm, as do her cheeks, her toes, her heart. She always sleeps best in his arms.


End file.
